Spent Saturday at a quilting exhibition with my lovely ma-in-law who is an expert craftswoman of nearly 90. She has always found me a dead loss in this department but was patient enough to show me a few tricks of the trade, in spite of not being well. In the old days, I had to suppress my domestic urges in the name of feminism - or believed I had to. She and I felt like women from different planets. Now, I love to watch her beautiful old hands thread a needle and knot the end of the cotton - so elegant. We were almost suffocated by quiltery and by the sighs and moans of women in the throes of acute textile lust. It must be how men feel looking at porn. I bought some Japanese pieces, all dark and moody and some spotty ones for summer. Joan cast a sceptical eye on my purchases, knowing the level of my ability. Ha I will show her! Perhaps. Also looked at a lot of impressive work - I particularly like the old pieces, with all the quilting done by hand. Imagine it would have been done by lots of women - hard to believe you could tackle one of these beasts alone. How lovely, the mixing and matching of scraps to form a thing of beauty - and how practical, warm and cosy on a cold night. Mixing memory and desire.